WINTER, PAUL

WINTER, PAUL (1904–1969), New Testament scholar. Born in Czechoslovakia, Winter by profession was a lawyer in his native land until the Nazi occupation in 1939. Escaping from Czechoslovakia, he joined the free Czech forces in the Middle East, where he served for several years and participated in the battle of El-Alamein and the Normandy landings. After his release from the armed forces he settled in England, where he lived until his death. In his later years he suffered great poverty. His main contribution to scholarship was The Trial of Jesus (1961), which created a great deal of interest in the scholarly world with its thesis that Jesus was not condemned by a Jewish court but by the Romans for political, not religious, crimes. He was regarded as one of the leading New Testament scholars of his time. (Seymour Siegel)